Carnival Cruise Line’s recently revamped cruise search on carnival.com has received a Digiday Signal Award in the Best Sales Automation Tools & Platform Category. The redesign, named “Fun Voyage,” was completed by the Miami–based office of SapientNitro, a division of Publicis.Sapient.

The Digiday Signal Awards, now in their second year, recognize technology platforms that bring efficiency, effectiveness and creativity to the media and marketing processes of brands, agencies and publishers. The winners will be recognized at the Digiday Awards gala Nov. 17, in New York City.

“Searching for the right cruise vacation can be challenging — especially for those who have never cruised before — so we set out to create a more immersive search tool that makes planning for a cruise vacation more inspiring,” said Christine Esteve, vice president – e-commerce for Carnival Cruise Line. “With the creative input and digital talent of SapientNitro, we’ve made researching a Carnival cruise almost as much fun as taking one.”

Esteve said that following implementation of “Fun Voyage,” itinerary views on the site increased by 50 percent.

The cruise line strives for continuous site improvement based on user feedback gathered through site comments and by studying the online behavior of carnival.com visitors. At the core of the site is Cruise Search — including search tools, search results and itineraries — where visitors initiate the cruise vacation planning process.

The new “Fun Voyage” booking experience starts by enabling visitors to make broad filter selections at the beginning of their search — for example, choosing to search for Caribbean + The Bahamas cruises available between June and August. The platform immediately presents the visitor with results in the form of large destination photos that draw them into the cruise experience. The next step communicates the value of a Carnival cruise by painting a complete picture of each itinerary with relevant information about destinations, shore excursions by port, onboard experiences specific to the chosen ship, stateroom options and available dates.

For guests who are farther along in their research, Carnival focused on three additional enhancements:

A search bar that remembers previous searches.

A new filter option that enables searching based on price range for easier budgeting.

Integrating the popular “red star cruise deals feature” that highlights rates with added value in the pricing grids.

The enhancements enable visitors to more quickly find previous searches and select a stateroom type within the pricing grid.

“To stay true to the brand, the Carnival booking experience has to be fun and functional for the end user,” said Matthew Kujawa, Sapient’s travel and hospitality global lead. “We’re excited to continue working with Carnival to create immersive experiences that truly show guests the thrills and excitement of the cruising voyage, but still explore at their own pace and book when they’re ready.”